Immortal Like the Gods
by Choosing Sarah
Summary: Crossover with Highlander. In Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel had been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up…Immortal.
1. Prologue

Title: Immortal Like the Gods

Author: Choosing Sarah

Spoilers: Through Moebius Part 2 (Season 8)

Category: Crossover Highlander the Series. Character focus is exclusively from the Stargate universe, but concepts (immortality, the Game) from Highlander show up.

Timeframe: Begins in Ancient Egypt between Season 8 Moebius Parts 1 & 2

Warnings: Canon character death

Rating: T for violent images

Summary: Crossover with Highlander. Back in Ancient Egypt in Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel had been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up…Immortal.

Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

3000 BCE (Give or take)

The first thing he felt when he woke was the burning heat of the hard sand beneath him. Instead of shying away from the discomfort on his skin, Daniel Jackson rubbed against it, reveling in the slight pain as it rolled in waves along the length of his body. He was alive.

He lifted his face from the ground and wiped the sand away from it, gasping for breath so suddenly and violently, it was as if his lungs had been completely devoid of air. The sun beat down on his body through the thickness of his robes. He looked around automatically as he sat up, trying to catch a glimpse of Sam or Jack or Teal'c. At least one of them had to have survived the interrogation in order to save him. Daniel spied an extinguished campfire and unfamiliar purse beside it. He reached for it, unbearably ravenous, and unable to remember when he last ate.

Before he could open the flap, a sensation, not quite a pain, started in his head, moved throughout his body, like pins and needles as a part of you just wakes up.

"Hello Dan'yel." A short man with dark hair and high cheekbones greeted him.

"Persuem?" Daniel barely recalled his name, in truth he barely knew the man, who always looked more Asian than Egyptian. He tended to follow Daniel around, and Jack not quite jokingly called him Daniel's stalker, sure that the man had designs on Daniel's person. Daniel agreed there was something odd about him, but he never felt Persuem was attracted to him or that he was a threat in any way. In fact, Persuem often went out of his way to protect Daniel from the Jaffa and especially from Ra and the other Goa'uld that ruled Earth. Beyond that, Daniel did not think it odd that another _Fytro Mis,_ a 'man without family,' would hope to find entrance into SG-1's inner circle. The ancient world was an unforgiving place to those without familial connections.

"Persuem." Daniel said again, noting for the first time how far they were from the city: even the Goa'uld motherships were not visible anymore. "What happened? We were captured, my team." He clarified, though he was sure Persuem knew whom he'd meant. "Where are the others?"

"They are dead, Dan'yel. As were you."

"No." Daniel shook his head automatically, heart thumping heavier in his chest. "No, I mean SG-1: Sam, Jack, and Teal'c. There has to be at least one of them. We were on the mothershi—in Ra's palace." Daniel automatically changed his vocabulary so Persuem would understand. "I couldn't have survived unless one of them helped me out of there."

"I assure you, they are dead." Persuem countered. "Their bodies hung for three days in front of the Chappa'i until the Jaffa cut them down."

"No. That's impossible." Daniel's voice was a whisper. "They can't be dead." He looked down to his own body. "I'm not even hurt." He exhaled. "Sam, it's Sam. She's the only one who can work the healing device. Unless—" He considered that the Goa'uld might have placed him in a sarcophagus. He shook his head. "No." If that were true then he'd still be in their custody. He escaped, so another of SG-1 must have as well. He couldn't have made it here alone, not with his wounds, and none of the native Egyptians had the knowledge or ability to help him get out of a mothership. He couldn't be the only one.

"I am sorry, Dan'yel." Persuem's voice was soft, though not quite gentle. "Now that this has happened, we have much to discuss."

"Where are their bodies?"

"Dan'yel?" Persuem's tanned face crinkled, his dark brows furrowed at Daniel's demand.

"If they're dead, then where are the bodies?" Daniel noted Persuem's military stance, the sword that never left his side, and the total lack of people anywhere nearby. For the first time when he looked at Persuem, Daniel saw the threat that Jack must have seen.

"Your friend Katep retrieved their bodies from the Jaffa. They were buried, as per the instructions left beforehand."

Daniel's features tensed, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, holding onto the fraying thread of disbelief while he still could. "If what you're saying is true, then how is it that I didn't die with them?"

"Ah, Dan'yel," The other man nodded, his expression clearing. "You did, but then you awoke." Persuem's speech was so calm, his stance so reserved, Daniel knew it was on purpose—a device to make him believe. He simply didn't know if Persuem spoke the truth or not. Daniel licked his lips, afraid of finding out.

"OK." Daniel spoke, his mind stepping into the nightmare. "They're dead, and I was what?" His breath shuddered involuntarily. He breathed out of his nose and squeezed sand in both hands. "Was I put into a sarcophagus?"

"No." The other man denied the claim. "The magic of the gods did not touch you. You are immortal. You were born so, Dan'yel. No wound can kill you now. No wound but one."

Daniel shut his eyes. "Look, Persuem. I'm sorry, but I can't do this now. I have to go back to the city. I have to…If they're dead I have to see to their rituals, their belongings."

"I am sorry, but this I cannot allow."

Daniel stood above Persuem, who simply remained still and watched him. "I don't care about what you can allow. I have an obligation to them." Daniel looked to the horizon on all sides, but no landmarks were visible, no dunes familiar. "Which direction is the city?" He demanded, but automatically looked east. They were most likely in the Libyan Desert, though he supposed they could've been in the Negev. Either way, Daniel didn't know their location within the desert, let alone where the waterholes were.

Persuem remained as calm and unmoving as before. "If you return now you will die. You are being hunted."

"I thought no wound could kill me." Daniel poked holes in his logic.

From below him, Persuem's stare finally drifted away. "You can die by beheading. It is the only way any of us can be killed that will not permit us to rise again."

Daniel followed the other man's eyes to the sword he always kept in his presence. Slowly, Daniel began to back away. "Look—"

"I will not kill you, Dan'yel." Persuem interrupted. "I have labored to save your life. I will not take it now."

Heavily, Daniel sat again, a little farther away from the other man. "These things that you're saying…" He shook his head.

"Dan'yel. Watch." Persuem grabbed a knife, and Daniel started to crawfish away, but Persuem only put the blade to his own hand. The cut was deep. The blood ran thickly. A blue lighting, like static electricity, covered Persuem's hand, and the cut healed before Daniel's eyes.

The archaeologist licked his lips. "It could be some sort of technology I haven't seen before or—"

Persuem moved quickly, faster than Daniel could have moved away. He slit Daniel's hand, closer to the wrist than the palm.

"What the hell?" Daniel tried to cover the wound with cloth, apply pressure.

"No!" Persuem boomed, grabbing his unmarred wrist.

And Daniel saw his skin reseal itself. The blood stopped flowing, the pain eased into nothing. He wiped the excess blood from his skin. "How did you do that?"

"I did nothing." Persuem took a seat on the sand again. "Our wounds will heal themselves. We will not age; we will not die, not unless—"

"Unless we're beheaded." Daniel finished, acknowledging that Persuem might be telling the truth—about everything. "Why me? Why not one of my teammates—Teal'c or Sam?" A deep, quick breath. "Jack?" He whispered.

"I do not know. I have never met anyone who does. But now that you believe, you must know about the Game."

"The Game?" Daniel questioned.

"All of those like us, we are a part of the Game. There are rules to the Game: All fighting must be one to one. No fighting may occur on Holy Ground. And the most important rule: there can be only one."

"One?"

"One of us."

"Wait a minute. These fights are to the death?"

"Yes."

"I—" Daniel looked to his hand, at the blood drying there. "This is insane. I'm having some sort of hallucination. Or maybe this is just some bizarre new Goa'uld interrogation technique." He hypothesized.

With a hand to his chin, Persuem forced Daniel's eyes back to him. "When you woke, you felt something. This feeling is similar in all of us, but not precisely alike. To me it feels as the air in a lighting storm. It begins in my skull and traverses my spine. Whenever we are close to another of our kind, we feel this. It warns us that another like us is near. So we can prepare for battle."

Sam probably could've come up with a dozen different reasons for how Persuem could have placed the feeling in his head after he woke up, Daniel thought. But somehow, he believed Persuem's explanation. "Why not kill me, then? If our kind is destined to fight each other to the death, then why don't you kill me? Why haven't you killed me already?"

"Every animal teaches their young how to survive before sending them off on their own. I will teach you to remain alive in the Game."

"How old are you?"

"Three hundred seventeen floods." He gave an Egyptian accounting.

"Three hundred and—" Daniel cut himself off, put two fingers to the bridge of his nose. "But you didn't live all those floods in Egypt, did you?"

Persuem shook his head. "No. My people came from the east. There was a great war for our land and many died. We lost. We were forced to move."

"It's not really surprising." Daniel considered. "Such mass migrations were fairly common in the ancient world, considering the miniscule population of the planet when compared with modern—" Daniel cut himself off, realizing as he did that he'd been waiting for Jack to do so. "They're dead." He said, only now believing. "They're all dead."

"I am sorry, Dan'yel." Persuem offered, sounding more sincere than before. "Your training will begin tomorrow."

To the Reader: If you dig this concept, then you have to read Corwalch's Which Came First? It's on and was among the inspirations for this story.


	2. Welcome Back Jack

Chapter 2 Welcome Back Jack

1952

He had tried to stay away. Then he'd tried to keep his observations only from afar. But in the end, Daniel Jackson ended up exactly where he knew he would on October 20, 1952—McGinnius Memorial Hospital in Clarksville, Minnesota. The only real surprise was that he'd lasted long enough in the Game to be able to stand in the town hospital waiting for Jack O'Neill to be born again.

The credentials he'd procured for this task were somewhat laughable compared to those necessary in the world he'd left behind when he and the rest of SG-1 had traveled back in time to Ancient Egypt. But he kept the fake driver's license with its caduceus printed on the back carefully tucked into his wallet and securely folded into the front pocket of his slacks. The printed piece of paper was official even if the name on it wasn't. He doubted anyone would bother to try to find out though—small towns like this needed all the doctors they could scrounge. And today, and maybe even for the next few years, Daniel Jackson aka Murray Samuel was a medical doctor, specialty in obstetrics and gynecology.

"Dr. Samuel! Dr. Samuel!" A pleasantly plump brunette called for his attention.

"Yes, Rose?" he answered carefully, painfully aware that they were alone in the hospital break room at ten at night and that Rose wanted a successful husband more than she wanted anything except perhaps her next breath.

"It's Mrs. O'Neill, doctor." The often overly excited nurse proclaimed.

"What about her?" Daniel adjusted his glasses and narrowed him focus.

"She's in a lot more pain than she was five minutes ago. I don't know what's wrong, but Nurse McDonald said to find you immediately."

Daniel ran down the hall and then down the flight of stairs. Mary McDonald had 25 years of nursing under her belt if she had a day. Daniel trusted her diagnoses much more than that of most of the doctors of the era.

Captain O'Neill (retired) jumped up on his one good leg when he saw Daniel bounce out of the stairwell. "Doc you've got to do something," he pleaded and moved down the hallway to catch up with Daniel's pace. "She's been screaming something awful and that featherbrained Dawson girl ran out in a panic—"

"It'll be alright," Daniel promised just before he got to Catherine O'Neill's door. The constant moaning and crying would have led him to the right place even if he hadn't memorized the exact number of steps to this room. "I give you my word that she and your son will survive." Daniel pushed into the small quarters and firmly shut the door behind him.

Mary McDonald looked up in relief at his entrance. "Dr. Samuel," she exhaled and shifted from her position between Mrs. O'Neill's open legs. "I didn't have any choice." Her hands were covered in blood above the boundary of the small plastic gloves she wore. "The baby's coming now. It's coming too fast," she finished more softly.

Daniel nodded and grabbed his own gloves, along with the special stethoscope he kept around his neck. He'd built Ancient technology into it ages ago, but he'd only inserted the necessary medicines for a complicated childbirth last night. He hadn't known what to expect from Jack's long ago comment that he'd been difficult right from the start, so he'd included just about everything for every contingency he'd known.

"Stay there," he told Mary before she could move. Then he placed the flat piece of the stethoscope on Mrs. O'Neill's bare belly. The modified device picked up the distress of the baby's heartbeat while it dispensed fast-acting painkillers and muscle relaxants into his mother. Daniel felt around the distended skin, his eyes fixed below her belly button, his glasses and their own modifications measuring the data from circumstances no one else could possibly see. He smiled. "Everything's going to be fine, Mrs. O'Neill." He set his eyes on hers. "Your son's just a little impatient today. I need you to take a few deep breaths, and then you're going to push."

"Ohh," Catherine O'Neill exhaled and eased back against the pillows on her hospital bed. "How did you do that?" she asked breathlessly, and he knew the pain had lessened. Daniel couldn't remove all of the pain of the proceedings without garnering suspicion, so the medicines mostly just disconnected Catherine's nerve endings from registering the sensations as pain.

"Magic." Daniel winked at her. "OK, Mary." Daniel pulled his watch a little higher above his wrist and gestured for Mary to make room for him at the foot of the bed. The nurse immediately complied. "Why don't you switch out your gloves and help to support Mrs. O'Neill's back?"

Mary furrowed her brow, but again followed his direction. Daniel gratefully accepted the compliment and set to work. "There's no time for the delivery room, Mrs. O'Neill," Daniel addressed Jack's mother. "So this is what we're going to do: You're going to take three deep breaths, and, when you exhale the third one, you're going to push. Mary's going to help you with the back labor, and I'll be right here to walk you through. Alright?"

Both Catherine O'Neill and Mary nodded at him. The labor moved fairly easily from that point. Unnamed, little Jack O'Neill entered the world at 10:37 that evening. Daniel quickly checked the readings on his watch for an advanced APGAR, then let the face turn back to its regular appearance of hands and numbering.

"Hey," Daniel let his finger slide down baby Jack's cheek. "Welcome back." Daniel bit his lip and forced himself to look away, up to Catherine and Mary's expectant faces. "Congratulations Mrs. O'Neill. You have a son."

Catherine's eyes closed with a keening sob. "Thank you. Thank you," she whispered, and Daniel knew the gratitude was only partially for him.

Mary moved to the foot of the bed to help him tie off and cut the umbilical cord. Then, much to Mary's surprise, Daniel handed Jack to Mrs. O'Neill, still bloody and naked. "Let him rest against your skin. He probably won't want to nurse yet, but you can try. Mary?" He turned to the other woman and eyed the space she'd occupied during the birth. She immediately retook it, and Daniel delivered the afterbirth.

"My husband?" Mrs. O'Neill questioned as Daniel changed gloves.

"Why don't we clean the baby off first?" Mary suggested, and Daniel yielded to her sense of propriety.

Mary looked at him oddly when Daniel moved closer to the child—closer to Jack—to help her clean him, but she said nothing of it. With the task completed, Daniel rechecked Catherine's status, slipped off his gloves, and exited the room.

Captain O'Neill nearly paced right by him when he opened the door. "Doc?" Jack's father walked up to him, his limp much more pronounced than it had been when they'd arrived late that morning.

Daniel smiled. "Mother and son are fine. Both came through the birth terrifically."

"Thank you, doc. Thank you!" Captain O'Neill pumped his hand fervidly. "So it is a boy; your guess was right. Can I go in?" His eyes flipped between Daniel and the door.

"Absolutely." Daniel stepped out of his way. He watched Jack's father reopen the door and close it behind him, shutting Daniel out.

Daniel breathed deeply, walked down the hall to the nearest chair in the open waiting room Jack's father had earlier eschewed. He banged his head against the solid wall behind him. He did it again; it wasn't as if it could do him any harm. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the unmerited disappointment coursing through him. "What the hell did you expect?" he blasted himself, "For a baby to get up and say 'what the hell have you been doing, Daniel?'"

"Dr. Samuel?" Mary's voice pushed through his privacy, high on its inflection.

"Yes, Mary," he answered and immediately distracted himself with the oddities of polite social interaction that would permit him to use the given name of a woman not much older than him in appearance, but wouldn't allow her the same due to their respective ranks.

"Captain O'Neill has asked about staying the night, I know the hospital policy would normally—"

"No, I think it's a good idea," Daniel interrupted, "I've never understood why we wouldn't want the loved ones of an ill or injured family member to help us keep an eye on their progress."

Mary grinned at him. "I'll let him know he can stay." She paused in the door when she might've left.

"Was there something else?"

"I thought we were going to lose the baby," she whispered, "Or Catherine."

"I'm glad we didn't."

"So am I." She shifted on her feet. "But I'm also surprised."

"Surprised?" Daniel's eyebrows rose.

Mary nodded. "Until you got there, the birth was very difficult, but after you arrived, it went more smoothly than most. I was certain that if she didn't lose this child she'd lose all the others."

"Others?" Daniel stood. "What do you mean?"

"All the others that might have been born," she clarified. "I was concerned this birth would prevent her from having other children in the future. And then you came in the room, and calm came with you." She chuckled.

Daniel cleared his throat, looked away. He put a hand to his mouth and shut his eyes. Jack had never had any siblings. Was that why? Was his mother incapable of carrying any more children after him? He shook his head, a denial, but nonetheless, the part of Sam Carter he carried with him reminded him of the problems of tampering with the timeline. "I couldn't have affected events that much, though," he said it to himself or maybe to his Sam, long dead, but Mary answered his doubt.

"I don't know what you did, but I've never seen anything like it. She was in distress, and then she wasn't."

"Umm…" Too late, Daniel sees the potential problem of Mary having been in the room during the birth. If only it had been Rose, who was always preoccupied with her number one goal in life. She never would have questioned anything he did, and where the hell was that girl now? "Mrs. O'Neill was the one that did all the work. And you did a spectacular job as well, Mary. All I did was catch." He chuckled in the hopes that she would follow.

She shook her head, her eyes still on him, trapping him. "You've been at McGinnius Memorial for months, Dr. Samuel, and I've seen you do many things." The statement was leading, but she stopped there and changed the subject. "My son is in Korea. His wife, my daughter-in-law, is pregnant, due in four months. She's had one miscarriage, one stillborn. And you…" Mary lifted one hand to her neck, drawing Daniel's eye to the gold cross as she twiddled it between her fingers.

Daniel shook his head, the inference too close to his memories of the Goa'uld. "Mary, I—"

"I don't need to know how or why," she interrupted, "But if I bring my daughter-in-law here, would you take care of her?"

Daniel licked his bottom lip, held his jaw stiff. "Of course." There was no other answer.

She let go of a deep breath. "Thank you, Dr. Samuel. You'll have my gratitude. If you ever need anything…" She bit her lip as if pondering her word choice. "I'm a very quiet person. I'm known for keeping to myself."

And with that, it appeared that Mary McDonald had promised him not only a favor but also her discretion.

"Thank you, Mary. I'll keep that in mind." And he would: In the last 5,000 years, Daniel Jackson had learned to take every advantage he could. "Why don't we interrupt the new family to check on Mrs. O'Neill's blood pressure?" Daniel adjusted his stethoscope around his neck, and Mary's eye lingered on the device for a bare second longer than she might have before.

"Yes, doctor," she acknowledged. Then she just turned and led the way.

TBC…


	3. What the Right Hand Is Doing

Please note there is a brief and VERY minor mention of Stargate: Atlantis in here. (Does that even count as a crossover?) No Atlantis spoilers.

Chapter 3 What the Right Hand Is Doing

1952

Daniel drove into his neighborhood slowly two nights later. It wasn't his first night back to the two story Victorian on Hollander Street since Jack had been born—he'd returned the previous evening to avoid arousing suspicion in his interest in the O'Neills. Tonight, though, he would actually go home.

He quietly shut the car door and walked up the narrow path, straightening a small gnome-like statue while he surreptitiously looked and listened…and felt. An economy of movements opened the front door, locked it behind him, and checked the log of his home security system. He activated the more advanced warning systems, not so much as a means of direct protection, but as an early alert. He turned on the lights, setting them to a timer: It would be suspicious if they stayed on the whole night, and he wouldn't be there to turn them off—he wasn't staying.

Daniel made his way to the basement door and down the steps. Once ensconced in the windowless room, he activated the beam. The periphery of his vision caught the bright flash, and when he looked around again, he was aboard his ship.

He exhaled heavily. "It's good to be home." Immediately Daniel removed the small device on his chest that masked his appearance and made him look to have darker hair, a broader forehead, and squarer jaw. Construction and programming of the Mirage Devices were far easier and more efficient than using hair dye and costumes, especially considering he had the Watchers and other Immortals to be wary of.

That done, Daniel went to primary ship's computer to check on the lifesigns instruments he'd placed subcutaneously on each of the three O'Neills. The panel lit up green. He nodded and checked to see if the data feed was coming in the same in his wristwatch. When he saw that it was, he exited the control room for his main living quarters.

The ship was almost as big as Prometheus had been, or rather, almost as big as it would be. Once Daniel might have blanched at the idea of such a large space for one person, especially as most of it was used for some manner of storage, but as he couldn't know how much he might have affected the timeline in the 5,000 years since he'd traveled back to Ancient Egypt with SG-1, the ship was necessary should circumstances require him to protect Earth—at least until they found the Ancient outpost in Antarctica again, but that wouldn't be for another fifty years.

Daniel peeked into what served as his refrigerator and dug out a beer. He tore off the latest computer readouts on universal activity most likely to affect Earth or Abydos or any of the other of Daniel's concerns. The substations he used to relay the data were mostly Asgard because maintaining his own system of satellites was ridiculously time intensive. Still, there were some areas that Daniel took pains to monitor himself—such as Atlantis. The Ancients never told their allies where they'd taken their lost city when they'd removed it from Earth, and, for reasons he couldn't name, Daniel was wary of informing anyone—even the Asgard—of its location.

As a result, he hadn't been to Pegasus in over a thousand years, not since the Asgard developed the capability to trace an energy signal through hyperspace. Of course, he didn't particularly want to revisit the Wraith either.

Daniel slid onto his couch, readouts of local galactic activity in hand. While it was more efficient to simply read the computer screen, it didn't take much more energy to print and recycle the paper, and Daniel much preferred the tangible feel of parchment under his fingers as he read rather than to simply interpret the ephemeral shapes of light that his modified Asgard computer offered.

Ignoring the printed paper in his hand for another moment, Daniel glanced around the room. It was the most earth-like section on his ship, but even his living quarters reflected the overall design of his craft—a mélange of Asgard, Ancient, Goa'uld, and other miscellaneous technologies. Daniel even would've incorporated Wraith systems into the fold—they were the most advanced in self-repair—had he not kept a hearty suspicion of their biotechnology. He'd had other ships, bought or bartered from other races, but this was the third incarnation of his own design. At 150 years old, his current vessel—_Homer_—was maybe a quarter through its lifetime.

While he modestly thought the ship to be of great design—as it should have been considering he'd been studying the various technologies for practically all of his life—he wondered what Sam might have done with it, how much more she would've improved his amalgamation.

His old friend was constantly on his mind of late. He wondered what she would've said of his actions two days ago. Would she have predicted the mistake he'd made? Might she have guessed that Mrs. O'Neill didn't have any other children because she'd lost her ability to do so when Jack was born? Of course, even that supposition was conjecture at this point.

Daniel slammed his head back against the headrest. It was too soft to give even a satisfying noise so he threw his latest stack of readouts to the floor and tossed his beer bottle across the room. The bottle gave a little bang-crash as it hit the floor, but then the mechanical maid set to work and quickly removed all trace of it.

"Why the hell was it me?" He questioned for probably the millionth time without hyperbole. Why had he been the one, the only one, to wake up that day 5,000 years ago after Ra had killed them all?

Flashes of those days before it ended zipped through his mind—they'd always worked well together, had always been close, but once they had no support from Stargate Command, they'd moved as one body, became more than a family. And then his team was dead. Persuem's training and then the first challenges he'd faced had kept him occupied for years afterward, stalling the shock.

It wasn't until the alternate version of his team arrived in Ancient Egypt that Daniel truly allowed himself to contemplate the fact that they weren't ever coming back. The differences between his friends and the strangers with their faces and quirks had only made the lesson all that much more painful. Still, Daniel had been sure he'd gotten that point, that there wasn't ever any going back.

And yet, he'd come to Minnesota to wait for Jack to be born, to deliver him from his mother, and by doing so he may have irrevocably altered the timeline.

Daniel removed the glasses. He only wore them for show now anyway and for the extra data his modifications provided. He rubbed his eyes through his lids and shook his head. "Sam would've known better," he reminded himself one last time. He would've left it at that if he could've, but the problem was, if he had changed the timeline, what should he do about it?

Daniel stood as he contemplated the problem. He bit his bottom lip, first one side of the fleshy protrusion, then the other. He paced between the coffee table and the couch. He'd been trying so hard not to be too blaring throughout history. He'd been so careful not to change much of anything, been so afraid that any differences would mean that his friends wouldn't be born, that his culture wouldn't develop, or worse: that events from the Alternate SG-1's timeline would come to pass.

Daniel got off his sofa and ran to his office and to the files he'd compiled years ago, first on papyri and later transferred to crystals. He'd written every detail he'd ever remembered of his old life—every story from Jack, every regret from Sam, every wisdom from Teal'c—he wrote down everything he could remember once he realized it was starting to fade. He tended to read parts of the log every once in a while, sometimes every few years, sometimes not for centuries, but Daniel always returned to the memories of his first life.

He also had files of the Alternate SG-1's lives, knowledge of their earth and their history, which was too disparate from his own timeline to merely be a product of Ra's interference.

Daniel sat down and looked at his computer, at the file names marking the Other SG-1's history, but he didn't need to open a single document to remember when he knew the problems of their timeline were partly his fault…

2995 BCE

The alternate timeline's Teal'c, though even more reticent to speak than Daniel's own friend had been, was compelled to give an abbreviated history of the Goa'uld for the benefit of Samantha and the Other Jack. Naturally, after discussing his position as First Prime, he went on to speak of Apophis.

"Think Stalin and Hitler to the nth degree," Daniel suggested to the alternate Sam and Jack, their confusion easily decipherable from across the fire around which the four of them sat outside Daniel's mudbrick abode.

"Stalin?" Samantha asked, a wrinkled brow pushing her glasses farther along the bridge of her nose.

"Hitler?" the Other Jack shook his head, a more blank than usual expression coating his face like Vinyl-Shine.

Daniel squinted at them, his jaw shifting as he realized: "You really don't know who they are do you?"

Daniel looked to the fire separating him and Teal'c from Samantha and the Other Jack. He didn't need to see the duo to know they were shaking their heads at his query. "Hitler and Stalin were two of the most evil dictators of the twentieth century. Hitler was responsible for murdering 6 million Jews in the Holocaust as well as inciting a world war, while Stalin sent easily 30 million of his own people to die in Siberian gulags."

"Gulag?" this Other Jack questioned, "You mean like in the War of Communist Expansion?"

"Excuse me?" Daniel's eyes shot back up to watch the two alternate earthlings across the fire.

"The War of Communist Expansion." Samantha nodded to accentuate Other Jack's claim.

"I take it you didn't have that in your timeline?" the Other Jack tucked his chin as he asked.

Daniel shook his head slowly and Samantha immediately took it upon herself to allay his confusion. "The conflict started in Korea in 1950 when the North Koreans invaded South Korea. The Soviets supported their venture and simultaneously invaded Turkey to gain direct access to the Mediterranean."

"Then the fighting spread to Africa and Asia when the US and the Soviets took sides in local politics." Other Jack picked up the narrative. "The fighting kept up for years. Neither side would back down. The US had better resources and more guns, but the USSR had more people and kept pulling men from their newly acquired areas to continue the war. Everyone wanted an end to the war by '63, even the politicians, but the US knew we couldn't march on Moscow, not with the number of Russians we'd have encountered."

Samantha shook her head. "That's when President McCarthy fired the nuclear warheads on the USSR."

"President McCarthy?" Daniel nearly swallowed his tongue, barely noting Teal'c, still silent beside him, assimilating every parcel of knowledge regarding his new allies.

"We're not going to get into an argument about whether or not they should've dropped the bomb on St. Petersburg, are we?" Other Jack directed to Samantha.

"It was a cultural city, not a base of military operations."

"It was their biggest port, by neutralizing—"

"Neutralize nothing. The Soviets just fired their missiles back at us."

"We had a nuclear war with Russia in your timeline?" Daniel barely choked out.

Jarred out of their argument, they looked at Daniel. "The War of Communist Expansion." Samantha reiterated, and she and Other Jack nodded together.

"It's what we've just been talking about for the past five minutes." The former Colonel narrowed his eyes at Daniel.

"But I didn't realize…a _nuclear_ war," he emphasized the method.

"We were actually very lucky they targeted New York and Washington," Samantha continued matter-of-factly, lifting her hands parallel to the ground to illustrate. "The jet stream pushed the fallout towards the Atlantic, and our farm land remained viable west of the Appalachian Mountain Range. The Great Lakes were barely affected at all."

"Wait, so that's at least three nuclear bombs that went off in the same year?" Daniel looked from Samantha to Other Jack as he asked.

"Five," the Other Jack corrected.

"Oh, five." Daniel's eyebrows rose. He cleared his throat. "I'm not an expert on the environmental sciences, but wouldn't that cause a nuclear winter?"

"Not exactly." Samantha began. "While the fallout from the nuclear bombs did cause the Long Winter, which lowered the average temperature around the globe by nearly two degrees for three years," she peered over at Daniel, "It doesn't seem like very much, but it's actually very significant considering worldwide temperatures, and it lead to widespread famine through the early 1980s." She continued with the primary situation when he urged her on with a rapid circular motion with his hand. "The governments of the US and USSR were able to use some sort of experimental scrubber to counter the radiological damage from the warheads. We've never been able to reproduce the effects in any of the tests thereafter, but we've kept trying."

"Some people think the government got the nuke scrubbers from aliens." Jack shrugged. "I never really believed that before, but hey." He held out a flat palm pointed towards Teal'c, who said nothing but frowned more deeply.

"Well, I guess anything's possible because we certainly don't have that kind of technology where I come from." Daniel sat back on his low mudbrick stool.

"Still, it's hard to believe that aliens would bother to get involved in earth's problems," Other Jack said.

"I bet you're one of those guys who believed it was the Fytro Mis." Samantha guffawed as his Sam never would have.

"What?" Daniel whispered, recognizing the term immediately.

"Don't tell me you don't have legends where you come from?" Other Jack asked.

"Not that one." Daniel shook his head, in shock.

Samantha and Other Jack glanced at one another for a brief moment before the former Colonel described, "There's a legend about a warrior; it's older than the Greeks. This guy, who's invincible, would go to the leaders of the world's nations and save them from some big catastrophe that's about to occur. He's lived for thousands of years, prevented wars, stopped famines, you name it. He's like a god to some people."

"And like the Devil to others," Samantha countered.

"Like the Devil?" Daniel echoed. "Why?"

Samantha lifted a shoulder, let it fall lax. "For interfering too much or too little. Supposedly he knows the future," she shook her head as if the idea were ludicrous to her even though she was sitting in Ancient Egypt, "and he has the power to change it, but he still lets things like the Black Death and the War of Communist Expansion to occur."

"And he's called the Fytro Mis?" Daniel interrupted.

Samantha raised her hands, palms up. "Whatever that's supposed to mean. The word's so old no one knows where it comes from, let alone its translation."

"It's Ancient Egyptian." Daniel stood. "A Fytro Mis is a man without family. It's what the local population would call each of us. It's what they call me," he finished before he walked away.

1952

Daniel blinked back into the moment, leaning more comfortably into his chair. He studied the blank computer screen in front of him while pondering questions he'd always been afraid of voicing. He'd been so careful throughout history, wanting so badly to interfere but not daring to chance making it worse.

But what if he were being unnecessarily cautious?

He looked to his wristwatch, to the lifesigns gleaming green across the board for the O'Neill family. He thought of Jack, at once charming and funny as well as caustic and bitter. Who would his friend have been if he hadn't lost Charlie? With Daniel there to guide Jack, getting into the Stargate Program and the event of his son's death would no longer be a package deal.

Daniel bit his lip, his heart beating faster while he tried not to move and spoil the thought: At this late date, Sam and the successor Daniel were the only ones yet to be born. Surely he couldn't do anything that would jeopardize that now? He just had to stay away from Sam's family for a little while longer, just until she was conceived, and Daniel didn't even know where he'd come from; his parents had never indicated that he'd been adopted, but now he could wait for the other 'him' to come around. Maybe Daniel could even see where he came from, who his people were.

He could learn so much about himself, about immortals, if he could only observe his parents and the surrounding area where he'd been born. Maybe history wouldn't be altered too severely if he made a few changes. He could intervene so that his successor wouldn't lose his parents the way Daniel had. And if that worked, then he could do things for Sam and Jack and Teal'c. There would be some lines he couldn't cross, some things that formed them too significantly, cut them deeply for him to change, but other events…why not?

Daniel reached out his hand, activating the computer screen with a touch. He could do something more useful with these memories he'd carefully written and rewritten, recounted and kept alive for so long. He could forge a new future—a better one this time—and he could use all of the information of the way the world was in his timeline, in the alternate timeline, to his advantage.

He tamped down the idea that another him might have had these same thoughts, might have changed history in the alternate SG-1's timeline, might have really been the legendary Fytro Mis. Even if that myth were true, if an alternate Daniel had lived that long, _he _had enough data that he wouldn't make the same mistakes.

He steeled himself as he opened the files on his old life. Another Daniel would be born in thirteen years. He'd have to plan carefully in order to observe without interfering. He'd certainly have to plan out his actions better than he did coming to Minnesota to see Jack back into the world. Daniel had someplace to be in July 1965, but until then, he would watch over Jack and plan for the future.

TBC…

To the Reader: Thank you to all who are following this story—and an even bigger Thank You, you fabulous people, to those who've reviewed. It has been a very long month without an update, and this is what happened (besides the obvious family togetherness issues that shan't be discussed): The original version of this chapter had serious issues for the future storyline that had to be mended before the installment could be sent out. Add that to the fact that a lot had to be said and with minimal interaction between characters and…well…let's just say I'm still a little nervous about it. If you would like to let me know what you thought of it, I wouldn't mind at all ;)

Thanks for reading,

Sarah


	4. Acceptable Risk Part A

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Chapter 4a Acceptable Risk

1961

The weight of his old broadsword pulled at his left, still sheathed as he walked on the long runway from his car to the abandoned hangar. The tug on his coat and at his belt was still familiar, even though he normally left the traditional swords at home in favor of the more convenient, more compact, extendable blades he'd had made by the Athosian artisans in Pegasus Galaxy. Daniel carried the broadsword because he couldn't risk the Watchers witnessing and recording the use of extraterrestrial technology. Moreover, there was definitely a Watcher in that building. His life signs detector had read two humans and one immortal in the hangar just moments before.

Daniel slowly drew the heavy blade before entering the old hangar. The presence of the other immortal was constant now. The tingle that had run up his spine the moment Daniel'd stepped out of his Valiant had transformed into a constant thrum. Daniel could feel the malignancy of the buzz, the anger and youth of the man who'd set this challenge.

Daniel kept his eyes moving, watching the entrances, peeking around the decrepit planes, and checking out the broken windows near the hangar's ceiling. He'd already switched his personal shield to emergency mode only—to be activated only if his opponent were to cheat. It irked his conscious slightly to use it, but there was simply too much at stake for him to risk losing his head to some dishonorable headhunter now.

No sooner did Daniel conclude the thought than the flash of metal and a wave of a long raincoat caught his eye. Daniel turned to face his opponent, dividing his attention between studying the hothead and surveying the large room. Daniel didn't need to look at his challenger's face. He'd gotten enough pictures of him when he realized the young immortal—a baby really, barely two hundred years old—was after his head. Daniel hadn't taken the challenger seriously, and he should have, because now he had so much more to worry about than himself.

"Where is she?" Daniel asked when no one else emerged.

The youth looked to be about 45, light brown hair turning gray at the temples, wrinkles at his mouth and around his eyes seeming to indicate that he'd frowned more often than smiled in his first life. "She's around," he declared in the long vowels of his early UP accent, waving his sword to accentuate the many possibilities.

"Show her to me, or I walk away," Daniel demanded.

"Still don't want to fight for the honor of your woman?" Murphy taunted, his jaw stiff. "Maybe I should have taken the boy instead." He lifted his chin, his voice not quite even, not quite committed to his words.

Still, Daniel blinked, "The boy?" he paused, revealing the fault line in his concentration.

The challenger's shoulders expanded, a slight preview to how he might start the swing of his blade. "The one you show such interest in." He tilted his head with exaggerated bravado as if to hide the emptiness of his threat. "I couldn't figure out why he garners your attention, though," Murphy revealed an honest curiosity. "He's not one of us."

Daniel narrowed his gaze, forcing his attention back to the fight. "There is so much more to this life than the Game." His words were more for the benefit of the Watcher present than the immortal about to die, but it was, of course, Murphy who answered:

"Not for us." Murphy shook his head and there was something like sadness in that statement until the young immortal squinted sharp brown eyes at him and added, "And certainly not for you."

"Mmm-mmph!" the muffled sound of a feminine cry resounded through the hangar and Daniel's eyes shot upward behind his opponent's shoulder to find the source. He took two more steps forward and finally saw her—mud matted at her hairline, eye blackened, and clothes dirtied and ripped. At least there was no blood. She was tied to a chair and surrounded by a collection of glass—what looked like windows and crystals—beside and above her.

"Mary," his lips tightened around her name as he eyed her fragile prison: A quickening in any sort of proximity to her would kill her. His eyes narrowed at the young immortal, reassessing the level of threat. "You bastard!" he hissed.

"I gave you the option of a fight yesterday, Samuel," the challenger dropped his raincoat to the floor and started a wide circle towards Daniel's position, "but you didn't seem sufficiently motivated to accept." The words were wooden, uncomfortable…almost scripted.

Daniel shook his head, denying his opponent's stance. "No Murphy," he shifted his sword as he removed his long jacket. "Yesterday I gave you the option to walk away. Today I'm not feeling so generous."

"Don't try to threaten me. This isn't a game that the young can win."

Daniel chuffed humorlessly. "On that," he brought the broadsword up to point towards his opponent, "we completely agree."

Murphy's eyes flared in the moment before Daniel attacked. The young immortal angled his blade to halt the blow, but Daniel's broadsword remained in motion, sliding down quickly to cut into Murphy's sword arm before shooting back up to balance the strike. Murphy tried to back away—he wasn't talented enough to maneuver his blade in such close proximity—but Daniel didn't allow his opponent the space. Daniel pushed him backward, using deft blows to cut into Murphy's arms, his sides, his legs, never permitting the young one to get in a single offensive move. Daniel didn't usually toy with his prey, but he was flexible enough to make exceptions when warranted. He watched Murphy tire, watched his skills regress with every cut made and every blow barely met.

"Why is it the young ones are never thorough in their research?" Daniel posed rhetorically while Murphy's sword barely blocked his latest charge, the young immortal's back literally to the hangar wall.

"Please," Murphy whimpered as his muscles strained from the effort of trying to meet the force of Daniel's strike.

"Did Mary say that to you?" Daniel demanded. "Did she beg you please not to hurt her when you kidnapped her?" He didn't wait for an answer, instead capturing the young immortal's wrist, causing him to drop the handle of his blade. Then Daniel plunged his broadsword upward under the rib and into the other man's heart. He watched death slacken Murphy's features. He left the sword in his opponent's chest, so he wouldn't awaken too early, because although the younger ones usually took more time to heal, there were always exceptions. Then he turned to face Mary.

Even her swollen eye seemed wide in fright and disbelief. When he took a step for her, she struggled in her bonds as if seeing only the killer that had emerged from Daniel rather than the man she'd known for nine years. Daniel approached her slowly but steadily, whispering comforts in soft tones.

"It's OK. It's OK, Mary." He shifted the large, framed window from its position in front of her, resting it against the hull of a biplane so it wouldn't shatter and frighten his friend any further. "It's me. It's Samuel." He knelt in front of her and worked her bonds loose with his hands rather than remove the small knife from its place at his right hip. "You're safe now." He freed her mouth, noted the bruise that had been hidden beneath the gag. "No one's going to hurt you, now." He freed her hands, and she shook off the ropes as soon as she had room to maneuver. "Everything's going to be alright. I promise." He freed her feet, and she stood shakily.

"You killed that man, Samuel," she accused, gaze unfocused, feet unsteady beneath her. "You killed him," she shook her head, wounded mouth twisting, "with a sword."

"I know," he couldn't deny her claim, couldn't admit the lack of permanence in the young one's death, without admitting to so much more. "He didn't give me a choice."

"With a sword, Samuel," she repeated.

"I did what I had to." He wrapped an arm around her to lead her to the door. To his relief, she leaned into him.

"They were going to kill me," she continued, stiffening in a way that had nothing to do with Daniel.

"Mary," he jostled her shoulder, "just stay with me a little longer. You're going into shock."

"Shock?"

"Yes, you've seen it before a hundred times, remember?" he prodded. "There was that time Mrs. Donnelly witnessed the Henderson's car wreck, and she got whiter than Ellen Henderson who'd lost almost a liter of blood."

Stiffly, Mary nodded. "You worked your magic for Ellen that day."

"Yeah," Daniel's tone flattened with unspoken irony, "I just waited until all of you were out of the room, and I waved my wand."

Mary chuckled, and Daniel sighed with relief. He'd been debating beaming them aboard the _Homer_ if Mary didn't start responding, but that meant using neural technology on the Watcher to keep him or her from remembering, which was always risky. Again, he exhaled heavily and briefly tightened his arm about Mary's shoulders. "Everything's going to be OK," he repeated the phrase for himself this time.

"Oh, your coat!" Mary exclaimed and scurried towards it.

"I'll get another." He reached a hand out to invite her back to him. "Let's just go." He'd barely finished saying the words when both a sharp 'bang' and a spider web of pain resounded in his head at once. He just had time to register that he'd been shot before he died.

TBC…

To the Reader: Thanks to everybody who sent feedback for this fic. I really appreciated hearing from you. I hope you all enjoyed this latest chapter, and I hope you're not mad at me for the cliffhanger or the hiatus (seriously sorry!). The thing is, the next installment is already complete. However, it really, _really_, _REALLY _needs a beta reader. So if you're interested or you know somebody, I need all the help I can get. Thanks for reading.

-Sarah


	5. Acceptable Risk Part B

Posted with thanks to Serina Kat, Thaumiel, and Ael L. Bolt for their generous betas!

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Chapter 4b Acceptable Risk

It was only through years of practicing—literally years, over and over—that Daniel managed not to gasp as he revived.

"Then you tell me what it means, Henry." The woman's demand was the first thing Daniel heard.

"I don't know, Gwyneth," Murphy returned. "I'm over two hundred years old, and I've never even heard of anything like it." The voices were close to Daniel, but apparently the young immortal was not so close that he could catch Daniel's buzz, muted as it was by the protection of the energy field surrounding him.

'They were going to kill me.' Mary's disbelieving words repeated in Daniel's head suddenly. 'They,' not 'he.' Why the hell hadn't he been listening more carefully?

"Could this be Holy Ground?" the woman asked. She must have been the young immortal's Watcher. "Perhaps that's why—"

"No, no. It doesn't work that way," Murphy insisted, and Daniel could hear him start to pace. "Holy Ground has its own feeling. Different places can feel different from one another, but I would know if this land had ever been blessed." The words again emphasized the youth of the other immortal, and Daniel's mind stuttered briefly on the young one's attempts at brutality mixed with his naïveté. "Whatever the reason is," Murphy muffled his words with what sounded like a nervous hand at his mouth, "we can't kill him unless we can find a way around it."

"Well, we need to figure out something before he wakes," the woman asserted in a way that had Daniel nervous for Mary. Was his friend safe? He needed to know.

Opening his eyes just a slit as Murphy and his Watcher argued, Daniel almost immediately caught sight of the woman who'd shot him. She was the perfect sort of Watcher: short in stature and just barely thick about the middle, her hair a nondescript brown. Most immortal eyes would skim over her form without truly seeing her.

Murphy waved his arms suddenly, quickly drawing Daniel's attention. "You shot him in the head. You're the one who told me that all the records say that any injures above the shoulders take longer to heal," the young immortal accused her. His tone became uneven. Her words, though, remained calm:

"And I also told you that we've documented the fact that the older an immortal is, the less time he needs to overcome his injuries. If he's one of the Old Ones—"

"What, you think this is Methos?" the challenger guffawed. "Hardly."

"The way he fought, Henry— " Daniel saw her shake her head. "He could be," she whispered. "He could be the oldest of all of you."

Murphy shook his head in disbelief, but then his features pinched. He tightened his grip on his sword, his wrist twitching in aftershock of the fight. The young one bit his lip. "Right."

The squabble continued, and Daniel listened for softer sounds beneath it. Mary wasn't anywhere in Daniel's view, so he had to locate her by sound alone. He tried narrowing his focus, concentrating completely on the sounds around him. At first, he couldn't catch a wisp of her, not the rustling of her clothing or a heavy hitch of breath. Then at once, there was a shift—leather on pavement—and then a sniff—quick and uneven. She was awake.

She was close to her captors. Another slight scratch of a rubber sole on concrete and he confirmed her location on the floor just below the bickering voices. His heart eased at the realization: He'd only have to make one lunge then to protect her. He flexed the muscles in his legs, the motion nearly invisible beneath his thick corduroy pants. He opened his eyes a little wider then relaxed into his quickening, letting it flow throughout his body.

Murphy fumbled with his sword, strangling his grip as the sensation resonated between them. A startled half second and the young immortal charged Daniel, probably in the hope of catching him off guard. Daniel easily rolled past the challenger, heading straight to Mary. He held out his arm and pushed her behind him. He regretted almost immediately that he didn't activate his transporter and send them both to the _Homer_, but of the secrets that could have been spilled in that moment, it was better that Mary fully know of his immortality than the Watchers know about his technology.

With Mary safely behind him, Daniel yanked Murphy's Watcher to him. He twisted her hand behind her back, causing her fingers to straighten with pain and her gun to fall to his other hand. Immediately he trained the gun just above and beyond the Watcher's shoulder at Murphy. The young immortal paused at the sight of the weapon aimed directly at his neck, apparently considering the potential in rushing for it.

"Go ahead," Daniel urged him. "I'm a terrific shot, learned from the best." He didn't take his eyes off Murphy, but Daniel still managed to locate his sword via his periphery vision. "I'll have your quickening with the pull of a trigger rather than the swipe of a sword."

Murphy narrowed his eyes, his chest heaving in the first sparks of panic. "That's not possible." He shook his head.

"It is," Daniel countered, measuring the young one's response with his eyes, while he considered the Watcher via his other senses. "You don't need to remove your opponent's head completely to release his quickening." He listened for Mary behind him. Satisfied that she wasn't in immediate danger, he forced his hostage forward one step, then another, and another, getting closer to his sword and farther from Mary. Murphy backed up as Daniel got closer to him. "All you have to do," Daniel tutored, "is sever his spinal cord and destroy his carotid artery. All I have to do," he dramatically cocked the gun, "is pull the trigger one time."

Murphy's lip began to quiver, "But the Game…" He swallowed hard. "The Game is with swords."

"The Game is older than swords, older than any sword made on this planet." Daniel's voice was hard—much harder than Murphy had been able to pull off earlier. "We don't need swords to kill each other."

The challenger bit his lip—hard. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Finally, chest heaving, Murphy tilted his chin to the Watcher and confessed: "I forced the woman into this." He blinked rapidly and released his sword to the ground, watching it go, then kicking it away for good measure.

"You're lying." Daniel spoke evenly, but he was intrigued by the shift in his challenger's actions. "You plotted together," he continued just to see where Murphy would go.

"No!" Murphy shook his head almost spastically. "It's true! She didn't want any part of it, but I threatened her life." He lifted his hands away from his body in surrender. "It was me. Just me."

"Henry," the Watcher whispered, her breath hitching as she held back a sob.

"She belongs to a group of mortals that watch us, our kind," he clarified. "She's useful." Murphy cleared his throat. "She would be useful to you." His voice held a special kind of pleading when he looked between Daniel and the Watcher.

"Samuel," Mary spoke up behind him, "I'm OK. And, and…" she cleared her throat and Daniel could almost see the consternation on her face, "and so are you." Mary's words were a statement, but her purpose held a quiet request for clemency. Despite their years of close acquaintance and even closer friendship, such quiet statements were still the only way Mary ever really asked anything of him.

Daniel released the Watcher. She immediately rushed over to Murphy, who tried to shrug her off.

"Go woman!" Murphy bellowed, using one elbow to push her away but keeping his hands clearly visible to prove his surrender.

"I won't," she argued and grabbed onto him. "I won't leave you."

"Go, you stupid woman!" His venomous words were caught out by the tears he barely kept between his eyelids. "I've never met anyone in my life as gullible as you are." His voice broke, and then he couldn't even look at her anymore. "It sickens me!"

"It's terrifying isn't it?" Daniel asked so calmly and so softly that he immediately silenced the others in the room. "The Gathering? The Game?" He lowered the pistol just a touch. "So frightening that you'd do almost anything to stave it off."

"Yes!" Murphy jumped on it, straightening his posture and finally shrugging off his partner's grip. "I would. I did. Me. Just me," he repeated frantically.

"There are other things in life besides the Game," Daniel told his challenger once more—silencing him. "But then you knew that," he finished, eyes on the Watcher. "Still," Daniel exhaled heavily and lowered the gun to his side, "I can show you more."

S

G

1

"No." Mary shook her head quietly, responding to Daniel's query. "I don't think I'll ever understand." She swiped her hand across the faux leather of his couch—the couch she sat on in his living room as it, and the rest of his ship, orbited the earth.

He continued to watch her for a moment before he turned around to look out his window. They were rounding Australia again. Mary had watched the first six rotations of the globe in silence as she listened to Daniel's explanation. Then she sat on his couch to listen to the rest. She'd barely looked at him through the whole account, and but for the first thirty seconds directly afterward, he'd not seen her eyes at all once he removed his Mirage Device and reverted back to his true appearance. He wished for some indication from her—condemnation or acceptance. He'd never told anybody everything before. He hadn't realized quite how long it would take—or quite how much it would take out of him.

"Are you—" Mary began so hesitantly that Daniel knew she'd been working up the nerve to ask. "Are you human?"

Daniel exhaled in near-humor at the question. He stalled his response, raising his hand so his fingertips just grazed the forcefield that protected them from the vacuum of space. He'd built that layer of protection. He'd used Ancient designs to develop the technology, but it was ultimately created by his hands, his mind. Would he have accomplished that feat if he'd been a regular man? Of course not. But did that mean he wasn't human at all? "I don't know," he answered honestly. He shook his head and lowered his arm. "I just don't know."

He heard her rise behind him, shuffle four steps forward. "You offered to be that other man's…" She paused and corrected herself, "that other immortal's teacher."

"Yes." He nodded, twisting his neck to the side. His gaze caught on his latest translation project—a small pyramid that projected the Last Treaty of the Four Races on its every surface. He couldn't look any farther knowing her eyes were on him now. He suddenly wasn't ready for that judgment.

"He was going to kill you." Her voice was as even as it ever was in the operating room.

"Yes." The word was short.

She took another step closer to him. "And he would have killed me, too, just for being close to you."

"He won't go unpunished," Daniel promised her, but for all his words, he didn't know how to explain his decision—his confidence that Murphy could be saved. "His Watcher won't go unpunished either," he continued. Daniel shook his head, offering the most perfect explanation possible—a reasoning she'd probably never understand: "They just didn't understand how to survive in the Game."

Daniel shrugged. Then he made the mistake of looking at Mary, just for a split second. He'd been so close to her for nearly a decade—in her life and in her mind and in her bed. He knew her face. Moreover, he knew the expression she wore. When he looked back out the window, he crossed his arms against his stomach—an old defensive posture he could never quiet get rid of. "And now with the device I inserted beneath your collarbone," he continued as if he hadn't faltered at all, "it's impossible for anyone to use you against me again. I can protect Mark and Heidi and the kids in the same way if you want me to." Daniel probably should have given them all tracking devices ages ago, anyway. It was the best protection he could afford them given the danger of his company. But it had felt wrong to perform the slight operation without consent. And yet—his conscience pricked him—and yet Daniel _had_ made the choice for Jack and his parents, and that didn't feel presumptuous at all.

She shuffled her feet behind him without moving closer or farther from his position. They stood apart in silence for long minutes while she considered and he waited. When Mary finally spoke, her words were stilted. "I thought…I thought maybe we would grow old together." It was so quiet in the room he could hear her lick her lips. "Actually…" She paused, her voice becoming thicker, "I thought we already were," she exhaled heavily, and he could hear her struggle to keep any inflection from her tone. "And I'd never," a sharp breath, a short pause and then her voice was even again, "I'd never even seen your face."

"Mary." He shook his head, unable to turn and face her tears, or more to the point, the decision they represented.

"I value your friendship and your protection and your trust," she declared decisively. "I always will. Murray Samuel was one of the most wonderful people I'd ever met in my life, and I hope you can live up to him, Daniel Jackson."

Startled, Daniel whirled upon hearing his name. Mary's cheeks were blotchy, but without any visible wetness. When he looked closely, Daniel saw acceptance in her red rimmed eyes, maybe even forgiveness, but he also saw a wounded distance in the way she looked at him. He nodded his understanding. "I hope I can live up to it, too," he confided.

She let him hold her hand when he beamed them back into her kitchen. She squeezed his fingers when he left. It was her way of saying goodbye.

TBC…


	6. Growing Up Minnesota

This chapter goes out with great thanks to Thaumiel, who always knows exactly how to make me laugh and who's been absolutely terrific as I slowly (I know, I know I know!! But I swear I will finish this at least!) get this out. Thanks sweetie!

Chapter 5 Growing Up Minnesota

1961

Daniel knocked twice—his knuckles rapping hard on the dark wooden door. A rustling started within, and he knew young Jack was begging his father to be allowed to open the door. Daniel could pinpoint the very moment Mike O'Neill capitulated: the heavy footsteps that had been nearing were replaced by light and quick feet. A moment later, young Jack's face appeared as he drew back the curtain on the side window to look out. Daniel smiled to watch the unlined face break into a grin.

Little Jack turned away, and Daniel heard a muffled, "Yes, it's him!"

"Well, let him in already!" Daniel only heard the cadence of Mike's words through the wall of the well-made home, but he knew the phrase well enough to be able to assign it to the slight inflection.

The golden knob turned, and Daniel's pint-sized friend opened the door wide. "Hey, Doc!" Young Jack said in perfect imitation of his father.

"Jack," Mike drew out the name in warning.

Thick lashes hid those bright brown eyes. "I'm sorry, Dr. Samuel," he corrected himself.

"Don't worry about it." Daniel tried to hide his smile, ruffling the young boy's hair—if a crew cut could be said to be ruffled—as he passed. "It's good to see you, buddy," he said.

"You, too, Dr. Samuel!" Little Jack returned enthusiastically. Of course, as Daniel had discovered early on, his young friend was very often enthusiastic about everything.

The kitchen door swung open, bringing with it a deluge of fresh aroma—beef, vegetables, and was that freshly baked bread? Kate O'Neill peeked around the opening door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

"Samuel, it's good to see you," she said warmly, somehow causing Little Jack to fidget behind her with her statement. "I'm so glad you could come."

"Yes, well," he shook his head briefly, just once, in a habit he'd adopted just for his Murray Samuel persona. "When I get invited to Catherine O'Neill's dinner table, I don't turn it down." He grinned and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

She smiled with both pleasure and affection, even though she'd heard the compliment a hundred times before. Murray Samuel could be creative, but he tended not to be.

"Mom is the best cook on the whole block!" Young Jack proclaimed in what he must have thought to be an extravagant compliment.

"Why thank you, Jack," Kate laughed and smiled at her son, rubbing the backs of two fingers against his cheek.

The boy ducked his head and looked at Daniel, seemingly unsure if such a tender touch from his mother was still allowed at his age. Daniel let his lips curl softly at the image—even this young, Jack was rarely so insecure. Winking at his young friend, he tried to convey his approval. "You're certainly right about that, Jack."

Daniel shifted his bottle of wine from one hand to the other. As he intended, the action immediately garnered Mike's attention, moving the conversation along. "Now, what is that, Doc? We've told you and told you not to bring anything when you come to dinner," he scolded mildly, a smile threatening to break across his features. This, too, was something of a tradition when Daniel came to the O'Neills'.

"Yes, well, a friend of mine sent me a well-aged date wine from Israel. It's supposed to be quite good." He gestured to the deep red liquid inside. "The dark color comes from the khadrawy dates, which are produced via traditional oasis horticulture. I couldn't see the sense in drinking it alone when I could share it with friends." He shrugged and smiled, waiting to get caught in the fib. Daniel brought a new wine to each and every gathering at the O'Neill household. And with each bottle, he also brought an excuse of why they had to drink it together.

Kate just turned her head to one side and exchanged a look with Mike. They both shook their heads, but finally Mike smiled and said, "Alright, doc, but I think you used that one about five times already."

"And that's just _this_ year!" Kate added and winked at her husband.

Mike stepped towards him in an oft-repeated move. "You want me to take that to the table for you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, yes of course," Murray Samuel flustered as if Mike didn't say that every time. As per usual, Mike offered him a hearty pat on the back when he took the bottle.

"I'll go get the wineglasses," Kate offered and hurried into the kitchen.

"Ooh, look at this, Jack," Mike took great care to make over the label. "This is definitely not written in English."

"Let me see!" Jack demanded even as his father angled the bottle to his son's eye level. Jack examined it a moment and shook his head. "That doesn't look like writing!" He accused, turning back to Daniel, the scandal of the discovery clear in his tone.

"Ah, but it is." Daniel took to one knee beside him, riding a finger along the text from its start on the right end of the label towards the left. "It's just that this writing has an entirely different alphabet. It's called Arabic."

"Arabic? Really? I'd have thought Hebrew," Mike asked, as interested in the impromptu lesson as Jack.

"Well, Israel's only been a state for 13 years," Daniel pushed up his glasses. "Language change takes a very long time, and Arabic will continue to be a common language in Israel for the foreseeable future."

"It will?" Mike asked, and somehow his words span more than one question.

Daniel cleared his throat, remembering himself. "Well, um," he shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, "um… probably, yes."

"Can you read what it says?" Young Jack interrupted, and Daniel was so grateful for the distraction that he looked and read the label without thinking, speaking to the wine's subtle flavorings and its vintage.

"Wow!" Kate exclaimed, the two-way door to the kitchen still swinging. "I didn't know you could read Arabic, Samuel!"

Immediately Daniel straightened. "I, uh, huh." He stood up. He kept his gaze on the bottle, and then on Jack, whose wide brown eyes were the same pure shade Daniel'd always kept alive in the back of his mind like a conscience —or a lodestone, always directing him back into his past, into the rest of the world's future. "I…" he started again but stopped, because looking in Jack's eyes, he was completely unable to assemble even the slightest fib. Daniel blinked away. It wasn't that he often lied to the O'Neills anyway. He didn't need to because, as good as he was at lying, he was even better at avoiding the truth. "I grew up with Arabic as much as English," Daniel finally—and unwillingly—revealed at a whisper.

"So you grew up speaking two languages?" When Daniel looked back up, Little Jack was squinting at him.

"Actually…" For a moment, Daniel felt his brows lift in consideration, as if he were truly having a conversation with his friend and not this child who might never become Jack. "Actually," he started again, surprising himself with what he wanted to reveal, surprising himself by remembering what he told the real Jack so long ago on their first trip to Abydos. _I grew up with bunches of languages—speaking them, reading them, writing them—English and Arabic were the ones I used most throughout childhood_. He almost said the words aloud, but Jack was old enough that he might remember them later, and even if he didn't, his parents would.

The quiet lasted too long, and the O'Neills shifted around the room, regrouping to defend his silence.

"Hey, sport, help your mom with those glasses, will ya?" Mike addressed Young Jack. The boy immediately complied, taking two of the three glasses from Kate's hands and holding them by the stems. Kate, brow furrowed, gave her husband a lingering glance as she took the bottle of wine from him and hurried Little Jack into the adjacent dining room.

Daniel watched mother and son place the glasses around the table in that perfect sort of harmony that only families achieve. It had always seemed before, that to watch it was to touch it, and to touch it was to be a part of it. But how could he have ever been a part of this when he'd always had to hold back the biggest pieces of himself?—Mary's words showed him that. He felt his eyes scrunch shut without his permission, a natural defense to keep them from tearing up.

"We could take a walk before dinner, if you want," Mike offered through Daniel's silence, his words a subtle invitation.

Daniel opened his eyes, looked directly at his friend, and then he smiled. "What are you kidding?" Daniel may have been fooling himself, but he wanted that illusion of belonging for just a little while longer, "and let Kate's good cooking get cold?"

Mike shrugged and smiled, but his eyes were as sharp and aware as Jack's had ever been. "Just a thought."

Daniel shrugged back. "Maybe later, alright?" He kept his posture loose as he and Mike continued with their small talk and Kate revealed his favorite hors d'oeuvres. _Just a little while longer,_ Daniel thought again through the cheese and crackers…and as he watched the three of them laugh and grin at him and each other as they easily carried the weight of the conversation…and as they lingered over dessert. But it really was over; his time with the O'Neill's was up.

"Thank you for a lovely meal, Kate," Daniel Jackson complimented his hostess as easily as ever when she circled the table collecting their dishes. "I think you've topped yourself again because that was the best apple pie I've ever had."

"You know you say that every time, Samuel," Kate O'Neill chided even as she beamed at the success of the small dinner.

"How come you wanna be called by your last name?" Young Jack O'Neill asked in a rush, apparently no longer able to hold his question in.

"Jack!" Michael O'Neill cut in sternly. "I'm sorry, Doc," the former captain shook his head and looked to Daniel.

Daniel waved off the apology. "Don't be silly. Jack's at an age where he's questioning the world around him." Daniel took on his best 'I'm a doctor. I know what I'm talking about' voice: it was best for achieving personal distance. "It's perfectly normal for him to ask why things are the way they are, especially when the circumstances are unusual." Daniel turned his attention to this Little Jack, as always looking for precursors to his friend in the young face. "The fact of the matter is," Daniel lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, squinting his eyes, "I don't really like my first name."

"That's the only reason you're called Jack and not Murray," Kate O'Neill told her son.

"Murray?" Jack crinkled his features.

"Yeah," Daniel nodded, "your mom and dad asked me when you were born if I wouldn't mind sharing my name. I told them I wouldn't mind getting rid of it entirely, but seeing as how it was on all of the paperwork already, I thought I'd better keep it."

"Dr. Samuel delivered you, Jack." Kate repeated what Daniel knew to be an oft-told story in the O'Neill household: with all the dinners and barbeques and game nights he'd spent with the O'Neills, he knew it first-hand. "I don't know how I would've made it through the birth without him. Maybe if the labor hadn't been so difficult…" She shook her head and looked between her husband and son. She and Mike only had one child. They'd been too afraid to risk another pregnancy after Jack was born.

"Don't even think it." Mike stood with little difficulty. Daniel knew the other man's knee caused him only a minor ache anymore. The elder O'Neill didn't have the debilitating pain through the joint that he'd lived with constantly as little as nine years before. The cartilage had somehow started mending itself around the time Jack had been born. "You and Jack are plenty for me." He moved behind his wife in a casual embrace after she set the dishes on the counter by the sink. "Maybe more than plenty." He eyed his son.

"Michael!" Kate swatted at her husband with the dishtowel. "Jack was the name of Dr. Samuel's father," she continued on with the story as if she hadn't been interrupted at all. "It's also the name of your grandpa, which is lucky," she told her husband, "because I don't know how we would've told your father we weren't naming his first grandson after him."

Mike chuckled. "Very lucky we didn't have to." Jack's Dad looked back up to face Daniel. "I finally got the new prism in the mail the other day, Doc. I just finished repairing your telescope." He pointed his thumb towards the back door. "It's out in the garage if you want to look at it."

"That'd be great!" Daniel lit up, nearly forgetting himself but already standing. Discussing the stars with Mike O'Neill was the closest thing he'd had to having Jack back in almost 5,000 years.

"Can I come, too?" Young Jack piped in.

"Have you finished your homework, Jack?" Mike asked.

Jack looked to his lap, nearly causing Daniel to smile. Sometimes, when he thought of the juxtaposition between this boy, who could not tell a lie, and the older Jack, who spouted falsehood and fact with equanimity, Daniel wondered if the fine line he'd walked through history had been reduced to powder yet by the tread of his feet.

"Go finish your homework first," Michael O'Neill directed his son, "and then you can meet us outside." Young Jack beamed at his father the way Daniel had just a moment ago. "Come get me if you need help before then."

Little Jack nodded. "May I be excused?" he asked. A quick nod from Mike, and Jack ran in the general direction of the living room.

Daniel and the O'Neills chuckled at his enthusiasm, and then Mike kissed his wife's cheek as he made for the back door.

Daniel quickly moved after him but paused in front of Kate. "It really was a wonderful meal," he told her sincerely.

"Go on." She shooed him out of her kitchen, a big smile still on her face. "You two are worse than Jack when you start talking about stars and telescopes," she teased him.

Daniel grinned back at her and trailed Mike into the cool, damp dusk of late spring.

Daniel slowed as he followed the light reaching outward from the garage windows, feeling the weight of his long journey catching up with him. Mike had already brought out Daniel's telescope by the time he reached the high workbench.

"Hey Doc," Mike said without looking over his shoulder, "I did the best I could with that crack along the base, but you'll have to keep an eye out for it from now on, make sure it doesn't get any bigger."

Daniel watched the set of Mike's shoulders as he worked, so much like Jack, the Jack he'd known. Mike's head peeked around. His eyes caught Daniel's.

"I'll have to do that," Daniel responded belatedly.

Mike turned back to the telescope, as if there were some last minute detail to work on before he handed it back to Daniel, though the former archaeologist knew the self-distraction was only a prelude to something else—just as it had been, as it would be again one day, with Jack. "Something on your mind?" Mike asked, inviting him into conversation for the second time that night.

Daniel walked to the high workbench Mike was using, looked at the telescope and Mike's hands fiddling with it. He shook his head as memories of his first life hit him head on. He turned and leaned his back against the table. When he spoke, he surprised himself with the words that emerged: "I'm not what I seem." He nearly cringed when the words made it out. He'd meant to be more subtle, to try to avoid the same sort of hurt distance from Mike that he'd gotten from Mary just the day before.

Mike glanced up at him. His gaze held no recrimination, though Daniel looked carefully for it. His friend put his attention back to the telescope, and Daniel looked away, too.

"I know." Mike grabbed a bit of cloth from a shelf by the small window. "I've always known."

"I—" Daniel cut off the delayed apology he'd forgotten to give Mary, cleared his throat. Squinted. Quirked his head to the side. "Uh…really?" His pitch went much higher in inflection as his gaze shot back to Mike.

The other man briefly looked to him again, nodded, and set back to work. He polished the outer lens of the telescope while Daniel tried to think of something to say when he hadn't been planning on saying that much. _How did you know?_ he wanted to ask but couldn't get his mouth around. Instead he said, "If you knew that I was—" Daniel hesitated to say 'lying' because hiding his identity had never felt personal with anyone else, never felt like the lie it was. "If you knew," he started again, "then why would you let me around your family?"

Setting down the wide cylinder, Mike kept the cloth in hand, bending to rest his elbows on the workbench. "Jack's never sick. Neither is Kate. Or me." He twisted his neck towards Daniel's direction but didn't quite glance his way. "You looked at my knee once just after Jack was born, and ever since then, it's been getting better, even though I haven't been to a doctor about it since then, and even though the docs at the Vet Hospital said it'd always be lame." Mike angled his neck back to his workbench and put the small cloth to the telescope lens once again. He stayed quiet for several long minutes, spurring Daniel to look over at him: the worrying of his lip, the edge in his eye, the raw expression on his face, all made Daniel's gaze scatter again quickly to give him what privacy such aversion afforded. "Then most of all," Mike finally said, "the night Jack was born. I'd thought for sure—" He coughed into his hand, more a nervous gesture than a tickle in his throat. He straightened his spine, gathering the packaging necessary to transport the telescope. "You've never given me cause to doubt your intentions, Doc," he sniffed and shook his head vigorously.

Daniel cleared his throat, which was suddenly almost too thick to let him speak. "I'll always look out for Jack, for all you," he whispered.

Mike sniffed again and pointedly didn't look at Daniel. "You going somewhere, Doc?"

"Yeah," Daniel got around to what he came to say, "I'll be leaving town soon."

"Yeah?" Mike echoed, still collecting the odds and ends related to the telescope. "You coming back?"

"You'll hear from me," Daniel gave the best answer he could.

The other man nodded slowly. "Can we get in touch with you, or will you be," he vaguely waved his palm upward in a gesture that could have meant anything.

"Mary McDonald will know how to forward my mail if you give a letter to her. Don't worry about postage," he added.

Mike turned to Daniel, looked him over, and held out his hand. Daniel grabbed the outstretched palm. "You've been a good friend, Doc."

"Daniel." The word was out before he could think it, but Mike O'Neill just smiled.

"You've been a good friend, Daniel."

He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut at hearing his own name over such an achingly familiar pitch and tone. Then Daniel let go of his friend's hand.

TBC…


	7. Like Warmth from the Desert Sun

**Chapter 6 Like Warmth from the Desert Sun**

1965

The sun felt different in Egypt—not so much warmer than it did elsewhere as simply beaming straight through him, burning off the impurities of the outside world. Abydos' sun once burned even cleaner against Daniel's skin. For so long, home was this special quality of sunlight that only the desert sun had ever seemed to provide. And now, with the sound of his father's voice in his ears for the first time in 5000 years, Daniel couldn't believe he'd ever called anything else home.

His father's long speech finally concluded: "Well, what do you say, Dr. Jones?"

Daniel nearly smiled at his own joke, knowing if his team were here, Sam and Jack would already be laughing and Teal'c would have at least cracked a smile at the Indiana Jones reference. "I'd be honored to be a part of the Abu Simbel rescue. I'll talk to Walter Leeds tomorrow and see if he can get me attached as a physician on the expedition, Dr. Jackson," Daniel smiled and shook his father's hand to seal the deal.

"Terrific! And call me Melbourne," his father enthused.

"And please call me Samuel," Daniel offered in return.

Melbourne nodded, pleased. "Now Claire isn't actually due for another six months, and we hope to be in Cairo by then, but I'd still feel better knowing a doctor with your experience was nearby."

"And I'll be happy to act as a physician, but as I mentioned before, my primary interest is in the work itself. I'm a bit of an amateur archaeologist myself." Daniel couldn't help but to lay the groundwork just a little more.

"Ah yes. I'd heard about your work with the Temple of Kalabsha. Martin Davis spoke very highly of you, and to be truthful," Melbourne leaned his head a little closer to Daniel's, "Martin Davis rarely speaks highly of anyone."

"I love the work," Daniel confessed. "It's an unprecedented time, having so much international support for archaeological studies. I just wish it could have been under better circumstances."

Melbourne Jackson shook his head. "The High Dam is going to destroy so many archaeological sites—just think of all the ones we'll never discover! How much history is going to be lost?" Melbourne bites his lip in a way Daniel used to recognize in his every day. "I hope the dam is worth it, but I'm not sure it will be. The say the floods will still come, after all. Just not as often or as bad."

"Egypt breathes with the floods. She'll miss them, but the people won't," Daniel spoke confidently. "This is the best thing for them right now. Maybe in another hundred years they'll think of something better, but for now, the dam will help a lot of people. Still," he tilted his head. "You're right. It is a shame those pieces of the past will be lost. But we can still save the biggest portions."

Melbourne smiled as if he'd been thinking the exact same thing. "Speaking of which, have you heard about Micah Vlanovich's latest find?"

"Micah?" Daniel quirked his head. "No. What's he been working on?"

"Ah." Melbourne raised a single finger. "Now that's a more interesting question than you'd realize."

And the desert sun continued to blaze against Daniel's skin as his father's voice flowed about him, every word and every beam of light speaking of home.

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1965

"Again," Daniel's voice hardened even further to his student. "You miss this combination, you lose your head."

Murphy stood swiftly, not bothering to brush the back of his pants where he'd landed. He circled Daniel more broadly this time, sword in the prescribed loose but steady grip, stare glued to Daniel's with unwavering intensity and just a tiny touch of hate behind his eyes. It would have worried Daniel except he recognized that hate from every single student he'd ever had—remembered feeling it himself, for Persuem especially, but also for Ramirez and Li and Vanya. The fact that the hate was there meant that he was doing his job. That there was only a small bit of it meant that he was doing it well.

Murphy took his time in the larger practice circle, and Daniel allowed it because his student kept his guard up this time, sword poised in both hands, centered with his body mass and balanced with unconscious precision to each shift in his weight. Murphy stepped closer to Daniel, his sword angling slightly upward with every step he took. Finally, Daniel struck. Broadsword high, he attacked Murphy at the shoulder of his dominant arm. Murphy pulled his sword up to counter, then forced the base outward and ducked and rolled, finally managing to force Daniel's sword up above his head and away from his body. As he regained his footing, Murphy pulled up his sword, base over tip, to counter any blows Daniel could make to his left side. The clang of metal on metal as Daniel did just that jarred both their swords, but Murphy kept a handle on his blade this time.

Daniel smiled as Murphy looked up at him, then he slowly released the pressure of his sword. Murphy did the same until they both dropped their weapons to casual positions by their sides.

"Good work," Daniel praised, watching Murphy duck his head in pleasure at the spare compliment.

Clapping off to Daniel's right caused both men to turn. "Terrific job, Henry," Gwyneth Llewelyn, Murphy's former Watcher, beamed at her lover.

Daniel turned back to look at Murphy, who was both flushed and smiling with the praise now. "Gwyn," Murphy spoke quietly, his pleasure at seeing her shining through the single syllable.

Gwyn looked at Daniel for permission to approach and Daniel nodded. He and Gwyneth still didn't have the best relationship, but she respected and appreciated his teaching of Murphy, and Daniel respected and appreciated their love for one another.

"You looked magnificent out here," Gwyneth smiled gently at Murphy and quickly ran her thumb along his sweat soaked jaw.

"You shouldn't do that," Murphy's large hand redirected Gwyn's smaller one from his face. "I'll get you all dirty."

She grinned. "I don't mind getting dirty with you."

Murphy grinned back, then blushed, looking up at Daniel. "Samuel," he said to his teacher.

"Go ahead," Daniel smiled at their enthusiasm for each other. "Normally I'd make you work until you could perform the combination several times, but it helps to have the proper motivation. I'll see you again at tomorrow evening's session."

Murphy paused, as if he were going to say something, then simply nodded. "Thank you for the session, Teacher," he said as he did every time when he and Daniel concluded a lesson. Then he slipped the glowing green pendant Daniel gave him before each session off his body and back into Daniel's hands. The pendant only had enough power at any given time to protect the wearer for forty-eight hours. Murphy knew the pendant offered protection, but he didn't know that it was only for a limited time because he'd never tested it, never tested Daniel again after his ill fated challenge when Daniel had spared Murphy and Gwyneth's lives.

Daniel nodded. "You're welcome," he said, as always. It was the only thing he could ever think to say once the pendant was back in his hands.

Daniel watched as Gwyneth and Murphy walked hand in hand out of their practice warehouse. He waited, like he did each time, for them to be out of sight before he went into the warehouse office and shut the door. Two clicks of his transporter later and he was back at the Abu Simbel rescue, back in his tent in the middle of the night.

It looked as though he hadn't been missed this time¸ but Daniel knew it was only a matter of time before he was caught coming or going. Moreover, this was not the best way to teach his student of a bare three and a half years—seeing him for only a couple hours every evening. He had to bring Murphy here, to Egypt, but could he really trust the other Immortal during such a delicate time? Daniel rubbed his forehead in his hand.

Truthfully, Daniel trusted Murphy around his parents, and it wasn't as though his parents were without protection either. They each had a lifesigns detector under their skin that would become a shield if necessary. The problem was that the baby inside his mother—the baby who was most certainly not going to become immortal—was also most certainly not Daniel as Daniel didn't share any DNA with either Melbourne or Claire Jackson while this baby did.

So where had Daniel himself come from? There was so much that no one knew about the Game, about Immortals, so many answers that Daniel actually had a chance of figuring out in six months when he was supposedly going to be born. That was the real danger of Murphy being in Egypt—not that Murphy could or would be a threat to Daniel's parents or even to the child his mother would bear—but that he could be a threat to Daniel figuring out the mystery of where they all came from.

Discovering the origins of Immortals was too important to risk for the sake of one man wasn't it? Daniel sighed. Five thousand years ago, he'd have argued the exact opposite point to Jack, but Jack wasn't here to argue with now. Daniel walked to his desk, fingers twitching above his stationary. Finally, he gave in and sat down. He wasn't sure what he was going to write until the words flowed from the pen, asking his good friend Michael Hallis to please see to the travel arrangements of his assistant, Henry Murphy, and Murphy's wife, Gwyneth.

Daniel laid the pen beside the paper, folded the missive into an envelope and sealed it before he could change his mind. Now he could only trust the gut of the man he used to be while he waited for Murphy to arrive.

TBC


	8. Dead Horizon

**Chapter 7 Dead Horizon**

June 1965

The message came off the satellite relays just five weeks before Claire Jackson's due date. Had it been anywhere else but Abydos, Daniel would have closed his eyes, locked his jaw and deleted it. But it _was_ Abydos, and as far as Daniel could tell, this should not have been happening.

"A family emergency, you say?" His father repeated, disappointed, when Daniel told him he had to leave for home.

"Yes, I'm sorry," Daniel dropped his eyes and shook his head. "You should go directly to Cairo right now. Claire is so close to delivery, it's hard to say what might happen at this late stage, but I'd feel better if she were near a hospital."

Melbourne Jackson nodded, but Daniel knew the real person that had to be convinced was Claire. He just wished he had time to speak with her.

"And when are you leaving?" Melbourne asked, hands nervously twisting behind his back.

"Right away," Daniel tilted his head, raised one shoulder. "The sooner I get there, the sooner I can return to Egypt."

"Of course," Melbourne looked away.

"I'm sorry to do this to you," Daniel furrowed his brow, his chest heaving though he'd not exerted himself. "If it were anyone else but my family—"

"But it is your family," his father finished for him with a lopsided smile. "Go," he urged Daniel. "I hope all is well when you get home."

"Thank you," Daniel said and shook Melbourne's hand between both of his.

Daniel nodded once more to the man who'd raised him, and who might soon again, and then turned and ran toward his tent.

Henry Murphy was already there waiting for him. "Teacher," he addressed Daniel as he sometimes did when he was nervous. "I'm not sure I understand what you need me to do."

Daniel took the time to grasp Murphy's forearm and let the other man grab him back. "I need you to watch over the Jacksons. See to it that Claire gets to Cairo in time for the birth and watch out for anything unusual happening around you."

"Unusual how?" Murphy spoke between pinched lips.

Daniel features squinched, but he couldn't spare an explanation he didn't have. "When you see it, you'll know." He squeezed the other man's arm just below the elbow. "I have to go, Henry," Daniel told him and released his grip.

Murphy nodded and let him go, eyes down, teeth over his lip.

Daniel left the tent and ran for the trail. He could disappear in the desert.

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_Homer_'s speed generally wasn't an issue for Daniel. The ship went faster than any other he'd ever been on. It could get him to Abydos in days instead of weeks. Still, as Homer raced through the bleakness of hyperspace, Daniel wished with all his might that he could have taken the space 'gate he'd collected and mostly just stored in the cargo area instead, but he needed his ship in order to defend the planet once he got there.

Daniel'd studied Abydonian language and history almost exclusively for his first several weeks on the planet. It was after Jack had gone back to earth as Daniel'd worked to find his place in his new home. He'd meticulously recorded their oral history and brought his journals back through the Stargate when he was recalled to earth. When the team had gotten stranded in ancient Egypt, Daniel had taken the time to write down as much as he could remember. While he couldn't recall every detail, even between those short years from learning and writing to rewriting Abydos' history, he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the invasion that was about to happen, the invasion of Cronus' forces into Abydos, was _not_ supposed to occur. What's more, it bothered Daniel tremendously that he hadn't heard a word from his network of spies on this matter. The only indications of the impending assault came from the satellite system he'd 'borrowed' from the Asgard.

And then Daniel paused, even shutting his eyes in consideration. He'd been fairly certain all these years that he'd hidden his sporadic use of the Asgard satellites fairly well. Additionally, he didn't imagine the Asgard truly considered him a threat, even if Daniel, himself, _did_ have a hard time trusting them. But what if…Daniel shook his head.

The Asgard knew of his patronage of Abydos, were even curious as to why he didn't free the people from Ra's rule when he could so obviously do so, and was not, moreover, bound by any treaties with the Goa'uld. Was it possible the Asgard were using Daniel's allegiances against him? Moreover, did Daniel have time to check and see if they were doing so because right now, either Abydos was in trouble or Earth was—or both. Daniel had always feared he might have to make a choice between them. He'd just hoped that when that time came, SG-1 would have already come along to help him out with it.

Daniel rubbed his face in his hands as he considered, and then his hands shot out, almost before he gave the order, and he dropped out of hyperspace. He reset his destination coordinates for the nearest system with a Stargate. Daniel wasn't sure if he was making the right decision or not, but he knew, at the same time, if he had to make a choice, his choice would always be for Earth.

Daniel gated to Taverrun, Cronus' homeworld, just three hours later inside his modified—and cloaked—puddlejumper. His confusion transformed into anger as he watched Cronus' army, which was far from mobilized, out the windshield. He took the time to scan the entire planet to be certain, but there was no true doubt in Daniel's mind that he'd been tricked.

Daniel checked his watch as he approached the 'gate to leave the planet—eighteen hours since he'd left Earth. He was tempted to dial Abydos to make certain the planet was not at risk, but if the Asgard really _were_ trying to keep him from Earth, it seemed likely that they would attempt to trap him on Abydos—at least temporarily—to prevent him from returning to Earth until they were finished with whatever they had planned.

Daniel dialed back to his ship instead, using his GDO to unlock his iris just before he reached the 'gate. Daniel killed the wormhole the second he was back through, then he ran all the way to the ship's bridge once the jumper was secured again.

The Asgard had better hope he calmed down in the sixteen hours it would take him to reach Earth again, or he'd blast any one of them he saw orbiting his planet right out of the sky.

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Daniel was only a few AU away from Earth when he dropped out of hyperspace. He caught the trail of an Asgard ship as soon as he entered normal space. Daniel cursed to see it. The alien couldn't have left more than a few hours before Daniel arrived.

There was no doubt at all in his mind anymore that Asgard were messing with his planet, and specifically wanted him away from it while they did it. Daniel thought out the scenario carefully. That meant he would have had to have directly noticed what they were planning to do, and it wasn't as if Daniel didn't permit the Asgard to visit Earth and even conduct their experiments, provided that said experiments did not negatively affect the human population. So whatever they just did, the Asgard knew Daniel would not have approved.

Daniel scanned for lifesigns, sighing with just a little relief to find Jack and his family and everyone in Minnesota safe and well. He set his sights on Egypt next, finding Henry and Gwyn and his mother and father were all alright except—

"Oh, God," Daniel breathed, checking over the data from his mother's chip again, but there was no mistaking it. Daniel'd read it right the first time. The baby in her womb was dead.

Daniel scanned the area around Abu Simbel, beaming down immediately. The sunlight beat at his back the second his feet hit the wet sand beside the river. Daniel flipped on his flashlight in the darkness of the Egyptian night and ran for the camp. He'd barely made it ten feet before he realized from the soft light coming from the direction of the tents, that every single lantern in the camp had to have been lit.

Why on Earth had he left? Why had he trusted that the information from the satellite relays would reach him unadulterated? It should have at least occurred to him ages ago that the Goa'uld might interfere with the data. Daniel hadn't seen this coming with the Asgard, but he would never make the same mistake again.

"Samuel! Samuel!" Gwyn called to him from the most brightly lit tent of all—the Jacksons' tent—as soon as Daniel'd hit the camp.

"Samuel!" his father's voice frantically called out upon hearing Daniel's chosen name. "Is he here?" Melbourne cried in nothing short of panic.

"He's here!" Gwyn returned joyfully, hollering directly into the tent.

"Oh, thank God!" Melbourne yelled. "Help! Samuel, help!" he cried, perhaps hoping to get Daniel there faster. It worked—Daniel kicked in that much more speed to hear the pain in his father's voice.

Daniel zoomed right by Gwyn, and right into the tent. "What's happened?" he glanced around the room, taking in his mother's pained face and prone position immediately.

"Did you get our message?" Melbourne blathered frantically. "You must have gotten our message!"

"I didn't get your message," Daniel glanced back at him briefly before refocusing all his attention on Claire. "I got another missive from home saying the crisis had been averted, so I came back." Daniel dug through the traditional-looking black doctor's bag he carried in with him, took out his special stethoscope, and gently lifted the bottom of Claire's shirt, checking for Claire's vital signs while confirming the death of her child.

"He hasn't moved," Claire breathed the words heavily, "since I woke up this morning, and now it hurts so badly," she told him with scared eyes.

"You're going to be okay," Daniel promised, releasing the painkillers into Claire's system with the flick of his thumb.

"My baby?" she cried with despair, and Daniel realized she already knew.

"I'm not sure yet," Daniel lied. "But he has to come out right now."

"But it's _days_ to Cairo!" Melbourne ran to his wife's side, set imploring eyes upon Daniel.

"Claire's going to live," Daniel swore it again, "but I have to do this here." Daniel tilted his chin toward the door. "Gwyn?"

"Right here, Samuel," she called back right away, just like Daniel knew she would.

"Get Henry," he ordered. "Tell him to bring my special lanterns and the reflectors from my room. I showed them to him once," and how Daniel hoped Murphy would remember what he was talking about.

"Lanterns and reflectors?" Melborne shook his head in confusion.

"I need as much light as I can get," the lies came easier to Daniel, or so he'd found, when people's lives were in danger. "Melbourne, I need clean water and linens," Daniel demanded.

"But," Melbourne squeezed his wife's hand.

"Go!" Daniel insisted. "We haven't the time."

Daniel watched his father go and turned back to look at his mother.

"Do I really have a chance at surviving this?" she asked, her eyes wet with fear.

Daniel grabbed her hand, the one his father'd held just a moment before. "Yes," he tried to convey that truth as much as he could with his eyes. "These aren't ideal conditions," he admitted, "but I've delivered more complicated births through worse," and that was _certainly_ true.

"And the child?" Claire whispered.

His mother held his stare, and just like when he was a boy, Daniel found he couldn't maintain a lie to those eyes.

Daniel shook his head, "I'm sorry," he said back just as softly, even knowing he shouldn't be adding to her stress.

But Claire just nodded. "I knew," she pinched her mouth shut. "I'd just hoped…"

Daniel squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. "I'm going to be putting you under. I'll wait until Melbourne comes back to do it."

Claire kept nodding. "Okay."

But Murphy appeared inside the tent first. He kept his eyes to the ground studiously not looking at anything, and Daniel was abruptly reminded of his student's age and of the era he grew up in.

"Now is not the time for embarrassment," Daniel chided his student. "I need the equipment set up in a circle around the bed," and seeing Murphy had gotten exactly what Daniel required permitted the older Immortal to relax his shoulders just a pinch.

Murphy set the holographic generator—not that he _knew_ it was a holographic generator—up around the bed as bid. Daniel needed the field in place in order to mask the appearance of the beaming technology as he removed the baby from Claire's body. Daniel also hoped to harness the energy to use as a dampening field as the initial beam transferred him and Claire up to his ship.

Daniel locked his jaw as he wondered whether the death of this child could possibly be related to the Asgard's visit. It seemed highly improbable—the Asgard tricking Daniel away from the planet to cause the death of a single human child—and yet, what else might they have done that would have angered Daniel so acutely that they'd felt they had to get him off the planet while they did it?

"Is that how it's supposed to be, Teacher?" Murphy inquired nervously once he'd finished with his task.

Daniel glanced around to be certain, but he'd taken the blueprint of the field straight from Atlantis' databases, and its design allowed for a great deal of leeway in its setup. "It's perfect," Daniel praised.

Melbourne burst into the tent a moment later with two of the local women working as cooks on the project. "They boiled the water just a few hours ago," he spurted out as he stepped in. "I wasn't certain if we needed more, so I asked the other cooks to start all the pots boiling just in case," Melbourne finished, throwing his hands up in the air as he did.

"That's good," Daniel told him because at least the action would distract people and keep them busy as he worked. "And the linens?"

"I have them, Samuel," Gwyn appeared as if by magic from behind his father.

"Excellent. Put them on the chair beside the bed," Daniel commanded, then stood when he saw Melbourne walk tentatively up to his wife. He laid a hand on his father's shoulder. "We only have a couple minutes before we need to begin," Daniel informed him.

"Yes, of course," his father nodded absently, and tried to make a brave face as he quietly spoke with Claire.

Daniel corralled Murphy and Gwyn to the other side of the tent to offer as much privacy as they could afford. Daniel remained silent until the cooks left the room, leaving only the five of them inside.

"Okay," Daniel nodded and reached into his black bag. "Murphy!"

"Y-yes, Teacher," the man actually stuttered, causing Daniel's eyes to shoot up at him, and there Murphy stood, trying desperately not to look at anything or anyone in the room. Daniel didn't have to look any farther to realize that, despite being the person he trusted most in the room, his student would never be able to assist him in the surgery. "Murphy, you'll be waiting outside with Dr. Jackson during the operation," Daniel lifted his brows in emphasis. "He is not to come in under any circumstances."

"Thank you, Teacher," Murphy exhaled with honest gratitude, practically running to the tent opening at the obvious reprieve.

Daniel brought his eyes back to his only other option. "Gwyn."

"Yes, Samuel," Gwyn returned obediently.

Daniel bit his bottom lip, disliking the words even before they come out of his mouth. "I require your assistance in here, if you please."

"Of course," she nodded.

Daniel shuffled Melbourne from the tent moments later, and with a glance at Murphy, Daniel knew the man wouldn't be coming back in until Daniel was ready for him.

"Claire," Daniel spoke gently once he reached his mother's side again. "I'm going to give you the medicine to make you sleep now, alright?"

"Alright," Claire sniffed, scared.

Gwyn grabbed her hand. "Don't worry now, dearie. Samuel knows the old gods by name. They won't let a thing happen to you," she smiled at Daniel's mother, and Mom smiled back.

Daniel narrowed his eyes at Gwyn's description of him, but then he just administered the medication to Claire via injection. He didn't need to use a needle, of course. He only did so to maintain the illusion of the modern day's medicine for Claire. She was sleeping within seconds.

Daniel sat by Claire's side a moment, just watching. He didn't bother to turn when he told Gwyn, "I don't know if you deserve the trust I'm about to give you, but I don't have a choice right now," and when he turned to Gwyn, she had a single brow lifted.

"I understand _exactly_ what you mean," she came back pointedly.

Daniel chuffed at the set down, and ducked his head in consideration. "Fair enough," he declared a temporary truce, and transferred them to his ship with a thought.

"Oh my God!" Gwyn breathed the words, taking a step backward.

"No!" Daniel grabbed her arm. "You have to stay in the circle," he warned. "Otherwise, you won't appear in the hologram back in the tent."

"Hologram?" Gwyn squinted at the unfamiliar word.

"I'll explain later, I promise," and Daniel would, too, that is if he didn't wipe her memory first. He was undecided as yet in that moment what he would do. "Right now, though, I need you to do _precisely_ as I say."

And Gwyn made a surprisingly good assistant during their solemn task as Daniel first removed the dead child and the placenta from his mother, and then worked to shrink her uterus to normal size, before finally halting the infection that had already started therein.

All in all, the entire procedure didn't take thirty minutes, and while Gwyn stayed breathless and amazed through the whole thing, she didn't speak a single unnecessary word either.

Daniel returned them to the tent with a brief flash that was, hopefully, only obvious to the two of them, and when Daniel finally had Claire settled as comfortably as he could, he glanced up and watched Gwyn finish cleaning, then wrap and cradle the dead infant.

"You could have saved this child," Gwyn spoke softly, confident of the fact, "but someone called you away from here." She ran a soft finger along the baby's—a baby girl's—brow. "Was it intentional?" Gwyn inquired in a harsh sort of whisper. "Did they want this child to die?"

Daniel shuffled over to Gwyn, his fingers rubbing their way across his brow. He shook his head. "I can't imagine why," Daniel returned just as quietly, "but I'm fairly certain they did," he sighed. "Only," Daniel's mouth began again without consulting him.

"Only?" Gwyn prodded.

"Only this is an ordinary child, and they wouldn't be interested in an ordinary child," he thought aloud, feeling how many questions Gwyn wanted to ask but didn't as Daniel paused. "They would be interested in a child like me and Murphy, though," Daniel concluded.

"But how would they even find a child who would become Immortal?" Gwyn finally gave in and queried.

"That's a good question," Daniel allowed. "We, those of us who are already Immortal, can feel our kind coming. We can even feel those young enough to remain unchanged by their first death," he said, though he was certain Gwyn already knew that much anyway. Henry told her absolutely everything. Daniel shrugged and licked his lips. "Maybe _they_ can sense us somehow, too," if Daniel's equipment on the _Homer_ can do it, then of course Asgard sensors should be able to differentiate from human and Immortal lifesigns.

"Who are _they_?" Gwyn's words were so slight as to be barely audible.

Daniel squinted and watched for her reaction as he said, "They're not human."

"The way _you're _not human?" she queried immediately.

Daniel's head jerked over to her at the question, but Gwyn seemed completely earnest and unbothered by her apparent assumption.

"Well, you're _not_ human, are you?" she shook her head and ducked her chin, looking up at Daniel from beneath expectant brows.

Daniel swallowed hard, deciding to go for honesty. "Never found out for sure."

"Hmm," Gwyn hummed. "Well, it's obvious to me you can't be human."

Squinting at both her announcement and the casual manner in which she spoke it, Daniel demanded, "Why ever not?"

"Well, what do our species have in common except the way we look and the way we feel?" Gwyn pointed out.

"If Immortals were our own species, then we would know where we came from because we would be reproducing ourselves," he went straight to the illogic of her theory.

Gwyn shook her head and tsked, "If you're _not_ somehow reproducing yourselves, then who's doing it for you?"

Daniel's head jerked to face Gwyn more fully. "That's an excellent question," he stiffened, thinking back to the trail of that ship earlier today and wondering if he was delusional in even imagining the possibility. _Could the Asgard have something to do with Immortals?_ Daniel considered the idea. The Asgard had been experimenting with cloning for thousands of years. Could it be possible that Immortals were just another aspect of that genetic research? But then what about the Game, Holy Ground—the Quickenings? Where did _that_ all come from? If the Asgard had created Immortals, they couldn't have wanted their experiments to start killing each other off, thereby reducing the data that could be derived from them. It didn't make sense.

Daniel stood. "I'll inform Melbourne the procedure's finished," Daniel ended the conversation abruptly, bringing them back to their initial purpose in this room. But then, when Daniel would have walked out of the tent, he paused near the entryway, mind moving yet again to that Asgard hyperspace trail above the planet and then back to the dead child in Gwyn's arms.

Daniel shook his head as he tried to remember, "What day is it?"

"Twenty-seventh of June," Gwyn responded right away.

Daniel bit his lip. If history repeated itself, then the successor Daniel Jackson should be born July eighth—less than two weeks away, but what if that young Daniel Jackson were already here? If the Asgard _had_ had anything to do with the child's existence—with _Daniel's_ existence—_and_ further assuming they didn't want Daniel to know about their involvement in whatever had created him (_them?_), then it made sense that they would have used whatever window of time they'd just had to put the child on earth.

Daniel sped back to the holographic field and beamed them back up to the ship.

"Keep a look out!" he ordered Gwyn, then ran for the infirmary's computer interface. He ran a scan on the planet looking for his own DNA, since Daniel had yet to find a way to electronically differentiate between humans and Immortals until the Immortals' first death made them visible by the added energy of their quickening. Daniel immediately noted a second lifeform with his own DNA. He used his satellites to view the location—in the Egyptian desert not ten miles from Abu Simbel. His first view of the child showed that he was completely alone and snuggled and warm, covered in a Bedouin blanket, which itself was sheathed in an almost imperceptibly slight forcefield that was fading by the second. Daniel instantly beamed the child up, a knee-jerk reflex. It wasn't until he tried to rescan the energy field to determine its origin that he realized he'd just dissolved the forcefield with his precipitous action.

"Samuel!" Gwyn's harsh whisper reached his ears, and he ran back to the holographic field, beaming them back down to the planet automatically.

"Please!" Melbourne's voice came through the tent. "It's been an hour, and I haven't heard a baby cry!" he hollered.

Daniel looked at the living baby in his arms, the young version of himself, and then he hurriedly shed the Bedouin blanket to wrap the child in one of the camp's linens. When he looked up, Gwyn was watching him with wide eyes and one hand covering her mouth.

"The child has no one," Daniel shook his head defensively.

"That's not," Gwyn denied, "that baby's one of _you_, isn't he?" she asked. Daniel didn't respond. "How did you know he was there?" she demanded. "How did you find him?"

Daniel bit his lip. "Another time," he promised, and this time, oddly enough, he meant it. And then Daniel stepped outside the tent, immediately finding what he'd expected—Murphy holding back an increasingly agitated Melbourne Jackson. Both men relaxed their grip on one another the moment they saw Daniel.

"Samuel?" His father's face pinched up fretfully, his eyes rapidly switching between Daniel's face and the bundle in his arms. "Claire?"

"Claire's fine," Daniel tilted his head back towards the tent, then just barely raised the baby in his arms. "The boy's alive, but the little girl didn't make it."

Melbourne shook his head. "Twins?" he breathed out harshly then raised both hands towards the child in Daniel's arms.

Daniel handed him over immediately, something tight in his chest loosening to see the way his father cradled that boy that could have been him.

"Daniel," his father whispered, and Daniel's head shot straight up to look at him, but Melbourne only had eyes for his infant son. "We were planning on calling him Daniel if it was a boy." Melbourne's brow crinkled. "And our baby girl," Melbourne sniffed, "She's to be named Margot."

Murphy's small motion as he moved towards the baby caught Daniel's eye. Daniel glanced up only to see Murphy watching the child in consternation. A pre-Immortal's buzz may have been slight, but from Murphy's close proximity, the baby's future would have been obvious to him.

"Would you like to go in and see your wife?" Daniel tilted his head at Melbourne with a smile, anxious to get his father out of the way of the coming conversation with Henry.

"I can?" his father lifted his chin excitedly.

Daniel nodded and moved out of his way, hoping Gwyn would help Melbourne through the experience when he looked at his dead daughter for the first time.

"Teacher, did you," Murphy began breathlessly once they were alone. "I mean the baby wasn't like that before. Did you just—"

"No," Daniel interrupted. "It's a long story," Daniel looked his student up and down, considered how completely Murphy obeyed him, how thoroughly he tried to please Daniel. The inequality had always made Daniel uncomfortable. And then Daniel thought about the fact that, despite their first meeting, despite even the distance Daniel'd tried to maintain between them after Murphy's initial ill-treatment of Mary, Daniel'd come to believe in this man, to trust him, not simply with his neck, but with his very mission. Why else would Daniel have brought Henry here, after all, if he didn't trust him? "Perhaps it's an overdue story," Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets.

Murphy's head jerked up, and Daniel could see the hope written all over his features, and abruptly Daniel knew he'd been wrong to hold Henry's sins against him for so long. Where would Daniel have been if his friends hadn't forgiven him all his own transgressions? Where might they all be now if Daniel'd offered forgiveness to Murphy earlier?

Daniel bit his lip. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"You've been so good to us," Murphy interrupted Daniel for the first time that Daniel can remember. "I can't tell you how grateful I've been."

"I should've been better," Daniel dropped his chin.

"No," Henry denied with a swift shake of his head. "You shouldn't have. I needed you to act exactly as you did in order to learn all the things I have—all those things I needed to know—and I thank you," Henry's earnestness was drawn in every line of his body, and how it made Daniel wish he'd gotten his head out of his ass a long time before now.

His growing discomfort with his reluctant teacher role should've made Daniel realize that Murphy had long since stopped being merely his student and had already become his friend. Daniel cupped Murphy's shoulder. "There are so many things I haven't told you."

Henry grinned, "Do you think I don't know that, Samuel?"

Daniel chuffed and ducked his head. "No, I guess not. Perhaps, though," Daniel raised his brows at his friend, "we could get started on correcting that tonight."

"Really?" and even though Henry was already smiling, his face lit up all over again, reminding Daniel of how young his friend was, despite his normally staid demeanor.

"Yeah," Daniel nodded and grinned back, and then the sound of a baby crying—of that young Daniel Jackson just wailing into life—broke through the night and traveled on the wind past the two of them and into the camp. "It's a night for new beginnings," Daniel declared, and thumped Henry on the back.


End file.
